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Never did a human voice fall more comfortingly upon a girl’s ears than the rough Scotch accents which greeted hers from the other side of that garden wall.

“Oh! Andrew, I—heard—” began Una, as strong arms lifted her over the wall.

“I h-heard—” she raved again.

But the words were blown from her lips by another hum; a hum that seemed heavenly, so loud, so cocksure, so mechanically humdrum it was—the hum of a skimming aëroplane.

“I heard—” she began for the third time—and lifted her eyes to the sky.

They were blinded by a sheet of flame.

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“Preserve us a’! It’s coming down. Coming down—a fire-tail! Driftin’ doomward—down’ard—an’ afire!”

Andrew’s hoarse exclamations tore at the reddened air, even as sharp horns of flame gored it, springing out from a biplane’s slipping side.

“Willa-woo! It’s side-slippin’—side-slippin’ down—afire!”

Old Andrew’s hand went to his head. The girl sank to her knees beside her waking flower clock. For her the end of the world had come, heralded by that mysterious pitch pipe in the woods.